Breaking Out of the Bubble
Back in General Cepeda
It is so good to be back in General Cepeda! A month or so ago our family was invited to help staff a number of short-term mission trips down here. We were thrilled at the opportunity to revisit a place that has meant so much for our family. We spent our first year of missions in General Cepeda and we were eager to return and help others encounter the beautiful people who call it home.
Ti Misyone Yo – Little Missionaries
The first few months at a new mission post are spent learning the language, learning the town, getting settled in, figuring out where to buy water and where to get dinner. After the first three months, we had a family retreat (three days of intense prayer) asking the Lord to show us what ministries he wanted us to start. And we have our answer.
Remembering Louie
When I met him in Camiguin, I thought he was just another boy: dirty, not the most lovable. Louie and his sister Fe had cerebral palsy, and while Fe was sweet and loved to laugh, Louie was rather stoic. He wouldn’t talk or smile at us. I remember holding Louie and just comparing him to his sister, wondering why he was the way he was. Now looking back, I’m grateful for who Louie was – who God made Louie to be – and grateful for how Louie’s uniqueness blessed me in so many ways.
The Lost Sheep Are Considering Baptism
We’ve read the parable of the lost sheep over and over, but have we considered the story from the perspective of the sheep? Have we thought about how it feels to be the one who is lost and alone, scared and filled with doubt?
The Moms that Mother’s Day Forgot
This year, Sammy and the kids made my day extra special with flowers, cards, a special breakfast, and even a original song that they wrote just for me!
Mothers are the ones who help us tie our shoes
Who wash the dishes we use
But the best part is she loves us
Mothers are the ones who help us dry our tears
Who chase away our fears
But the best part is she loves us
Mother’s Day’s the day
Mother’s Day’s the day
Mother’s Day’s the day
We celebrate our moms
Great, right?! Sooo great.
All moms deserve to feel as special and loved on Mother’s Day as I did, but as I was counting my own blessings I knew that that just isn’t the case. Mother’s Day can be hard, lonely, sad, or disappointing for lots of moms and women who desire to become moms. Motherhood in all its forms and tenses — the day to day living of it, or the loss of it, or the yearning for it — involves so much vulnerability. It exposes our very core to so much hope and often, so much pain. I think it must be absolutely the most human experience a woman can open herself up to.
Running In Costa Rica
“Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us, while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of our faith.”
+ Hebrews 12:1-2 +
FMC Classic Post // His Ways Are Not Our Ways
[Originally posted 8/27/2015]
“Are you excited to go for a run on the Great Wall?” I asked my mission partner jokingly.
“I don’t know about going for a run,” he laughed, “but I am definitely excited to be here.”
It was midmorning, we had just landed and both of us were really looking forward to three epic days of climbing the Great Wall, seeing the city, and visiting the FMC team. We had just spent two action-packed weeks in the Philippines and were on our way back to our mission post in Asia. This was the perfect opportunity to make a quick visit, and we were going to make the most of it.
Leanor’s Great Faith
The Naughtiest Child
Not Too Young
If you show up at Faith Camp this summer, you are going to meet a whole bunch of bright-eyed, crazy-energetic, matching-shirted young people. They won’t only be the junior high students and their friends. You will meet the young people who do the prep work, lead cabins, organize and orchestrate the activities, and, frankly, run camp. Faith Camp is radical because we are by young people, for young people, and Faith Camp changes lives for precisely this reason.
Hard Bends, Dead Ends, & Beautiful memories
The highlight of my mission trip would have to be the second day of the trip. We traveled to a pueblo called Tres Unidos. It was not easy arriving at the Pueblo, but it sure was a little heaven here on earth, hidden in the wilderness. It reminded me of our own journey in life. Life is not a road easily traveled, but a mix of hard bends, dead ends, and beautiful memories. All our hardships and toils are worth every bit of it because heaven is our final destination. There was so much of grandeur in the sceneries and in the mountains and in the valleys that the road we traveled to get to Tres Unidos and the time was worth every second. Life is hard but it has so much beauty in it that a good way to experience it well is to live it with a thankful heart and constantly remind ourselves that our God is so good… All the time! Herein lies the beauty of our journey.
A Cold Coke in Haiti
The Gospel of Matthew, according to Alex
The dim hospital room was packed full of 15 or 20 Filipino families, each huddled around a bed or crib holding their sick child. The windows were open and a single oscillating fan in the corner provided some airflow to keep the room bearable. Our small group of missionaries had introduced ourselves and were tasked with sharing a testimony – a personal story about when each of us saw God in our lives.
Dinner with Jesus
Is Just One Soul Worth It?
A Healing
In the late afternoon of the second week of November, we made a visit to a tiny community outside of General Cepeda, Mexico. We went to Oratorio Chico to pray with the people there in their small chapel. With the sun setting as I drove our twelve-passenger van down the long, violently bumpy dirt road to get there, I felt like I was looking out at the set of a dusty Spaghetti Western: shrubs and cactus peppered the landscape; patches of dry, sandy soil separated the vegetation; real tumbleweeds rolled across the road. Out here, the wind will blow around a piece of greenery, scattering its soil, until finally, without anything to hold it down, a careless gust flings the little plant spinning off into the desert.
